KEY POINTS:
Each day, rain or shine, Kim Thompson can be found strutting the streets of middle-class Grey Lynn in Auckland hunting stray cats.
To the forgotten felines fed daily by the eccentric 52-year-old beneficiary, she is just the cat's pyjamas.
Speak to Thompson's neighbours, though, and you'll get a
different story - in short they want to strangle the feline friendly state-house tenant.
For the past several months the fur's been flying in Grey Lynn, with irate neighbours up in arms about their peace being shattered by Thompson's cat-calling capers.
Morning and night, the piercing shrill of "here puss" resonates up and down usually quiet streets. From out of the alleyways and back streets, cats emerge to dine out on a free meal courtesy of the city's cat lady.
This has been going on for seven years, mostly without incident, but earlier this year fed-up residents said "enough". They complained to police, Thompson was charged with disorderly behaviour and last week she had to front up in court, where she was convicted and fined.
Thompson's lawyer, Chris Comeskey, the man who brokered the return of the Waiouru war medals, is crying foul over the case. He is planning to take an appeal to the High Court in a bid to overturn the conviction and clear Thompson's name.
He is so outraged about Thompson's treatment that he is representing her free of charge.
"What we have here is a good Samaritan who is doing no harm to anyone and she's confronted by the full force of the law," Comeskey said.
"Where is the compassion? She's an animal lover and she should be supported for that, not hauled into court and asked to explain herself. This whole thing is shameful and completely distasteful."
Thompson's neighbours were yesterday cat-egorical about not wanting to talk to the Herald on Sunday, saying they'd lost that loving feline for their noisy neighbour.
Thompson, however, didn't hold back, saying she couldn't understand why so many people were against her. She claimed one neighbour had tried to poison her, which meant she now had to wear a gas mask when she went outside her house.
It was for that reason she hadn't mown her front lawn in months, which she accepted had become an irritation to residents in the area.
She said that since her brother died three years ago she had been living alone and the cats provided her with companionship and comfort.
She had always been a "cat lover" she said and wasn't going to be deterred by the disorderly conduct conviction or by a few busybodies trying to shut her down.
"I don't worry about them. I'm not going to stop - why should I?
Without her, she said, many of Grey Lynn's strays would go without food and occasional shelter.
"I'm all some of these cats have," she said. "If I didn't feed them they'd get killed."
About $50 of her unemployment benefit went on cat food a week, sometimes at the expense of things she needed for herself, she said.
